The journey home: Local veterans give advice on returning from war

By Kimberly FlandersStaff Writer

Thursday

Feb 27, 2014 at 12:01 AMFeb 27, 2014 at 6:30 PM

“We seek the help of others who understand our fears, men who dare to show their grief, who dare to shed their tears. We came home scarred and broken, with resentment even hate; it’s time to heal our wounded souls, before it is too late.” — from a poem written by Vietnam Army veteran Frank Schuyler of Mount Holly, N.J.,

Jeremy Vandekar says the hardest part about military life is the transition away from it.

“One of the hardest things I had to do was apologize to the families of the people who died. They came to Iraq with us and they didn’t come home. Sorry. That’s really hard to deal with,” says Vandekar, a Marine from Devon, Chester County, who served two tours in Iraq.

Postwar, the 29-year-old Vandekar says he stays strong and positive by remembering his friend and fellow Marine Chris Zimmerman, who died in Iraq in 2006.

Vandekar, who served on active duty from 2004-2008, said during his time at war, he lost many friends like Chris.

“Every time we stepped outside we were getting shot. We found weapons, RPGs, IEDs, buried. We lost a number of guys,” he said in an interview.

As a member of the Marines’ elite Reconnaissance unit, Vandekar said a grueling training process readies Marines for war and the reality that some, or all, may not come home.

But the experience still causes Vandekar to express a gamut of emotions:

“He died.”

“He’s a better person than me so why didn’t I die?”

“If I had been in front of him, or if I had switched places, or if my team had been out instead, we could have accomplished it without him having to lose his life.”

Vandekar says it’s important for veterans to experience these emotions and use them as motivation.

“When I was going through college after the Marine Corps, I made it my determination if Chris Zimmerman was going through college he would not slack off and party and drink and waste his time,” Vandekar says.

“So I wasn’t going to get a ‘B’ or a ‘C.’ I was going to do my best. (Chris) wasn’t given this opportunity, and I would do the best for him.”

As another coping mechanism, Vandekar wrote a book, “Kicking Ace, Taking Names,” as a way to document his Marine experiences through training, deployment and his transition home.

Now, he is happily married and encourages other veterans to seek opportunities to help themselves.

“I would just wish that they (veterans) see those memories as good times with good people. But that’s what they are – memories. There’s more things ahead they can accomplish.”

While Vandekar was deployed to Iraq in 2006, Army veteran Frank Schuyler of Mount Holly, N.J., who served in Vietnam, had also taken to writing as an outlet for his post-traumatic stress.

After returning home from war, Schuyler said he began struggling with alcoholism.

“I used alcohol to help eliminate some of the nightmares. I thought maybe if I drank enough, I’d go to sleep and not have the nightmares, but it actually made things worse,” he said.

“I started thinking about my situation and just started to write things down.”

Schuyler ultimately ended up writing a poem that tells the journey of a combat veteran through war and making the transition back to civilian life.

“I found it to be very helpful. I think the poem not only could be used by Vietnam veterans but any veteran. I’m sure guys from (other) wars went through the same post-traumatic stress,” he said.

The poem begins by describing the Vietnam War, and Schuyler’s haunting memories years later.

”A sound, a smell, a single word, can take me back again. A place that seemed a world away is just around the bend.”

Schuyler said in the poem that he lost many friends in the war – the “crackling guns and blinding flash.” These were the last memories he had before their lives were lost.

”I shake my head, I wipe a tear, I strain to clear my mind. Why can’t I wipe away the fear and leave the war behind? I thought I had the answer with bottle by my side. A quick and easy antidote, a place for me to hide.”

Schuyler no longer struggles with alcoholism and says he hopes his poem can inspire other veterans to seek help if they need it.

”We served our country honorably, we gave all we could give. It’s time for us to be set free. It’s time for us to live.”

Kimberly Flanders: 215-345-3119; email: kflanders@calkins.com;

Twitter: @kimmyflanders

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